Post #4003752

2026-07-22 04:12 UTC

IRBs are a vital mechanism for ensuring that research has respect for persons and avoids causing harm. But they are woefully unprepared for dealing with CS research. Folks at Stanford and Google ran an experiment where the basically A/B tested car congestion in cities by tweaking the routing weights in Google Maps. Without informing anyone, and without consent. Now: their results are cool! They do suggest that this can be a good way to ease automobile traffic! It can save time and emissions! But check out this part of the paper: "The study protocol and data use were reviewed by the Stanford University Institutional Review Board (IRB). Based on the analysis involving exclusively non-identifiable data, the IRB determined that this work does not meet the definition of research involving human subjects as defined in 45 CFR 46.102 or 21 CFR 50.3, and therefore did not require formal IRB review." What are we even doing here if changing the traffic patterns of entire cities does not have "human subjects" https://www.nature.com/articles/s44284-026-00443-x

Replies (6)

@rpaulo@infosec.exchange 2026-07-22 05:56

@ricci@discuss.systems if Amazon decides to change the website and makes it more annoying where people spend an extra minute searching for their products, does that test involve human subjects? Note that the number of people in either the A/B population is significantly higher than that of an entire city.

Open ##4005064
@bob_zim@infosec.exchange 2026-07-22 11:44

@ricci@discuss.systems So making changes to something without regard for the identity of who might be affected doesn’t count as involving human subjects? Does that mean the Stanford IRB think the Tylenol murders were victimless?

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@ricci@discuss.systems 2026-07-22 04:57

Like, I had to go through more IRB approval than this when we wanted to *interview 10 people about their jobs*. I'm not complaining! It was good! We approached the interviews more thoughtfully than we otherwise would have, were more careful about the kinds of things we needed to avoid exposing, and had to consider what "harm" could mean in this context! But IRBs *know* about talking to people! They *know* about giving people experimental drugs or surgeries. But apparently they don't know about perturbing the daily lives of millions of people.

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@laprice@beige.party 2026-07-22 04:57

@ricci@discuss.systems that is some impressive doublethink even in an era rife with it.

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@jef@mastodon.social 2026-07-22 05:09

@ricci@discuss.systems 100% this. And the only reason they even asked an IRB is because of Stanford's involvement. Tech companies do blatantly unethical A/B testing all the time with no review at all.

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@riley@toot.cat 2026-07-22 08:19

@ricci@discuss.systems The city was built for cars, and cars are the test subjects. The humans are just along for the ride.

Open ##4222276